A wide variety of medical endoprostheses or implants for highly diverse applications are known from the prior art. Within the scope of the present invention, implants are understood to be endovascular prostheses or other endoprostheses, such as stents, fastening elements for bone, such as screws, plates, or nails, surgical suture material, intestinal clamps, vascular clips, prostheses in the area of hard and soft tissue, and anchoring elements for electrodes, in particular of pacemakers or defibrillators.
Today, stents that are used to treat stenoses (vascular constrictions) are used particularly frequently as implants. They include a body in the form of a tubular or hollow cylindrical matrix lattice that is open at both longitudinal ends. The tubular matrix lattice of an endoprosthesis of this type is inserted into the vessel to be treated, and is used to support the vessel. Stents have become established for use to treat vascular diseases in particular. The use of stents enables constricted regions in the vessels to be expanded, thereby increasing the lumen. Although the use of stents or other implants makes it possible to obtain an optimal vascular cross section that is necessary primarily for therapeutic success, the permanent presence of a foreign body of that type initiates a cascade of microbiological processes that can result in gradual closure of the stent and, in the worst case, to vascular occlusion.